All Rivers Run to the Sea [antikvár]

?AST NIGHT I saw my father in a dream. His unshaven face was the same as ever, its expression frozen, hut his clothing changed from moment to moment—from his Shabbat suit to the striped rags of the damned and hack again. Where had he come from? From what landscape had he escaped? Who sent him? I can't recall if I asked. All I remember is how sad he looked, and how resigned. I could see by the way his lips were moving that he wanted to tell me something, but no sound came. Then all at once, in my sleep—or was it in his?—I suddenly doubted my own senses. Was this really my father? I was no longer sure. In dreams all certainties are blurred and dimmed. Dawn and dusk, reality and fantasy, merge. And yet it was my father who appeared to me last night. Bearing a message? Or was it a warning? I awoke drenched with sweat, my heart pounding. A terrifying idea crossed my mind: that he had come for me. I never really knew my father. It hurts to admit that, but it would hurt him even more if I deluded myself. The truth is I knew little of the man I loved most in the world, the man whose merest glance could stir me. What was the secret of his inner life? What was he thinking as he stared in silence at some far-off, invisible point in space? Why did he conceal his cares and disappointments from me? Because I was too young, or because he thought me incapable (or worse) of comprehending them?